Most of the events and many of the characters in this novel are known to us with varying degrees of historical detail. Those seeking comprehensive nonfiction accounts of the 1913 Michigan copper strike would do well to begin with Cradle to Grave by Larry Lankton (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), a scholarly study of the Michigan copper industry. Steve Lehto’s Death’s Door (Troy, Michigan: Momentum Books, 2006) focuses on the Italian Hall disaster in both legal and social terms. Both of these books have extensive bibliographies.
The Italian Hall disaster is said to have been the event that inspired Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dictum that free speech does not extend to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. President Wilson did bring together the Commission on Industrial Relations to scrutinize labor law; Mother Jones, Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, and the famous attorney Clarence Darrow testified to the commission during its consideration of ideas like a minimum wage, paid overtime, and a national prohibition of child labor. Those reforms were not codified until the end of the 1930s, after the National Labor Relations Board came into existence under Franklin Roosevelt. However, the Clayton Antitrust Act did pass in 1914, after which courts could no longer rule that strikes and other union activities were illegal conspiracies or trusts in restraint of trade; the Clayton act was called the Magna Carta of Labor by Samuel Gompers.
This progress was lost to view in August of that year, when headlines about the war in Europe replaced those about labor strife. The Great War’s pointless slaughter scythed through a generation of young men not much older than the children of the Italian Hall, bringing death in unimaginable numbers: thirty-seven million casualties in four years. Even before that carnage drew to an end in 1918, a lethal influenza began its sweep around the globe, killing some fifty million people. By 1920, the Italian Hall disaster was forgotten by the world beyond the Copper Country. In 1984, the building itself was torn down, apart from the stone archway that once led to the staircase where seventy-three people died. A plaque now commemorates the disaster. The strike itself and its contribution to Calumet’s decline remain controversial.
For this novel, I have loosened the time line to allow for character development and to clarify the narrative. Some events have been taken out of sequence. Annie Clements’s time in jail reflects the experiences of suffragettes and labor organizers of her time, not her own incarceration, about which we know little.
Dialogue and inner lives are the province of the novelist, but where possible, I used direct quotes from Anna Klobuchar Clements, Governor Woodbridge Ferris, President Woodrow Wilson, Mother Jones, Ella Bloor, and Jane Addams. As theatrically villainous as James MacNaughton may seem, the portrayal is accurate—including the dedication engraved on the gold watch he demanded from the miners who went back to work after the strike. A ledger in the archives of Michigan Technical University contains the list of men who “contributed.”
The photographer who documented life in Calumet and the aftermath of the Italian Hall disaster was John William Nara. Michael Sweeney is a fictional character based on Frank Shaw, Annie’s second husband and the father of her only child. Shaw was a journalist rather than a photographer, but I wanted to reflect the importance of photography to the work of social reformers. I have given Annie a considerably better fictional relationship with Michael Sweeney than she had with Frank. At the end of the strike, she divorced Joe and joined Frank Shaw in Chicago, where they were married shortly before the birth of their daughter. Like Annie’s first and third husbands, Shaw became a dangerous drunk; Annie divorced all three. She opened a millinery shop in Chicago and treated her own employees well, although according to members of her family, she never spoke of the Calumet strike or her own role in it.
Tom Fisher is a composite character, representative of the men who ran private armies of strikebreakers hired by company executives. As one of his men suggests, these criminals eventually infiltrated labor unions around the country. That’s a story for someone else to tell.
Major Henry Van Den Broek is loosely based on Major Roy Vandercook. Eva and Kazimir Savicki are entirely fictional, but the Kivisto family and their situation in Calumet were real. (The family surname has since been changed to Kewest). Solomon Kivisto was the last man to die in the mines before the strike; his widow was offered the deed to their company house in exchange for fifty years of labor. Solomon’s son John was the grandfather of my friend Rivkah Tobin. Her personal memories are of a violent, angry old man whose unhappiness echoed down three generations of her family. Like Annie Clements, John Kewest never spoke of what happened during the strike. The closest he came to that was in 1966 when he drove up to Calumet with Rivkah, who was thirteen at the time; when they passed the Italian Hall, her grandfather pulled the car over to the side of the street and sobbed. He never explained why.
I am also indebted to Joyce Minks for details of her father’s family history in Calumet; Joyce’s father, Henry (Andrej) Zagar, was a child who survived the Christmas Eve disaster. Thanks also go to Elaine Petrocelli, who shared memories of her great-grandfather Moishe Glass, whose family ran several general stores in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during the years of the strike.
Charlie Miller represents two real people—Charles Moyer and Guy Miller; they were the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners and a Local 15 official, respectively. At the end of the strike, Charles Moyer was shot in the back by Sheriff James Cruse’s deputies; Moyer survived the assault, barely.
A strike is a collective action, and by focusing on Anna Klobuchar Clements, I have not given other union organizers and leaders in Calumet the attention they deserve. That said, the central role of women in the 1913 copper strike and in the labor movement in general was remarkable and has been underrepresented in most historical accounts.
A number of people generously shared their expertise with me: Dr. John P. Beck (Michigan labor history); Amy Cooke, Ann Hoffer, Susan McMullen, and Jean Lightner Norum (genealogy research); Carey Granger (early mining technology); Eugene Frank Hodal (union history and politics); Alice Margerum (strikers’ songs); James Reichardt (legal practices); Steven Porter and David Selcer (tactics used during labor-management negotiations); Dina Rossi and Bob Price (early camera technology); Kathleen Valentine (union social welfare work). Special thanks go to those who helped me with Finnish history and culture and who related family memories: Kathy Grzedzinski, Erika Koskinen-Koivisto, Kristi Manninen, Antti Pesonen, Marjaana Pilvikki, Paivi Trip, Marjaana Voutilainen, and Kate Willette. Michigan Technical University generously offered a grant to underwrite my research in the strike archives.
As always, I benefited from a team of early readers; they provided me with encouragement, criticism, and personal reactions to the developing story over a period of nearly three years: Bob Price, Gretchen Batton, Frank Hodal, and Joyce Minks. Early versions of the complete manuscript were much improved by the corrections and suggestions of Miriam Goderich, Vivian Singer, Rivkah Tobin, David Selcer, John P. Beck, and James Reichardt.
A 1913 miners’ strike in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is not an easy sell. I am so very grateful that my extraordinary agent, Jane Dystel, simply would not give up on this novel and found the perfect editor for this story. Tara Parson’s enthusiasm for the manuscript gave me the determination to push through three more drafts. Her clear and specific suggestions made this novel far better than it was when it first landed on her desk.
Bonnie Thompson has copyedited all seven of my novels; I rely on her meticulous care and attention to detail. If any errors remain, it’s because I reintroduced them in galleys!
Jane Dystel, Miriam Goderich, and Bonnie Thompson are the only fixed points in my wandering literary life. We four are coming up on our twenty-fifth anniversary now. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with you all these years. Thank you.